What Is Induced Lactation and Why Is It Important?

In short, it is the practice of helping a woman (who is not pregnant) produces milk. It can be done in numerous ways that starts from the natural stimulation process to consuming herbal medicines.

In the case of adoption, this is practiced because the best way to connect to a child is breastfeeding.

A lot of adopting mothers prefer induced lactation over any other substitutes for the baby. It is also practiced in the case of ANR (Adult Nursing Relationship), a growing part of the sex life of people all over the world.

How To Induce Lactation Quickly

Inducing lactation can be done in many ways.But let’s talk about some of the most efficient systems and how to get the best out of them.

Inducing Lactation Quickly Through Suckling

The more natural way of inducing lactation is stimulating the breast and nipple area. For this, you need a nursing partner who will suckle your breasts like an infant eight times a day for at least 20 minutes each time.

If you consider eight times to be a bit excessive, you can also reduce it to two to four times a day. Four times a day may be ideal for you with the schedule as follows:

Morning Session: You can have your nursing partner suckle your breasts before going to work for about 20 minutes.

Afternoon Session: Considering the fact that you can’t just have your partner come by your office to suckle your breasts in the middle of the day, waiting till the day ends may just be a good idea.

But you have to keep in mind that you can’t be too late as well.

After-dinner Session: After dinner and before going to bed, you can again have a session with your nursing partner for 20 minutes.

Midnight Session: If both of you commit to it, it is good to have another session in the middle of the night.But make sure it doesn’t affect your health.

Feel free to set the schedule according to your convenience. Though it would be best if you evenly distribute the suckling sessions over the whole course of the day. You can also “finger stimulate” around your nipple area at times.

Power Pumping

Power pumping is hour-long commitments that will see your nursing partner suckle your breasts with proper intervals. You can practice this to get the best outcome.

I’d suggest that you do this at least once every other day. The hour will be distributed as such: 20-minute suckling session, 10-minute break, 10-minute suckling session, 10-minute break, and 10-minute suckling session again. So that’s 20+10+10= 40 minutes of suckling sessions with 20 minutes break overall.

How To Induce Lactation Quickly with A Breast Pump

Breast pumps can also be of great assistance to an already existent nursing partner or for women unable to find a nursing partner. You need to pump at least every two hours a day to get the best outcome.

Remember, you need to gradually increase the pumps. Start from low and gradually settle into the medium setting.You need resilience and a day to day commitment for that. Pumping for about 10-15 minutes each session should get the job done.

Choosing a breast pump can be tricky, and they are not so cost efficient either.So, you need to do your research thoroughly.

Also, you need to keep in mind that if you’ve never been pregnant, using a breast pump may turn futile altogether. For people who’ve never been pregnant, it’s surely not the best way to go. But don’t refrain from trying because the body of a woman can respond in unique ways.

The more recent electric and cordless breast pumps have gotten quite popular among people these days, as they make things a whole lot simpler.

Inducing Lactation with Herbal Remedies

From menstruation to pregnancy, fenugreek has always catered to the need of a female. Induced lactation is no different than that. Fenugreek increases milk production up to a maximum of 900%.

It can be found in the forms of capsules and syrup and may be consumed to increase the milk flow of a woman. If taken by mouth, it can also help with digestive problems like constipation and stomach upset.

Also, blessed thistle herb has proven to help with induced lactation as well.

The recommended consumption of each of the herbs is three capsules a day. The capsules should include 610 gm fenugreek and the blessed thistle herb should be 390 mg of the product per capsule. You will have to take them after a meal.

How To Induce Lactation Quickly with Medicines

In order to understand how medicine works in this case, we need to understand the changes that happen to a woman’s body during pregnancy.

It includes high levels of estrogen, high levels of progesterone, high levels of prolactin, high levels of gonadotropin and other hormones.

So, the medicines that will help induce lactation would also need to increase the hormonal flow of the body. And usually, that is what doctors prescribe; hormonal pills.

But the problem with hormonal pills is that the pills that contain estrogen are very counter effective here. They are known as milk disruptor and they do not help the cause. In this case, the doctor may prescribe progesterone only pills.

Newman-Goldfarb Protocol

Renowned doctor Jack Newman MD follows a protocol to induce milk with medications. The person wanting to induce milk is initially given a combination pill (containing both estrogen and progesterone) as well as domperidone.

Domperidone increases the prolactin level. According to the protocol, the consumer needs to be on the combination of pills for at least 16 weeks. Even after finishing the birth control pills, the person (man/woman) needs to pump accordingly and keep the stimulation going.

Inducing lactation quickly with birth control pills, devices and implants have proven to be very effective.But it may also come with some unexpected brisk blood loss. Though generally, they are nothing to worry about.

Soreness in Induced Lactation

With suckling and pumping and trying to constantly stimulate the flow of milk inside the body, it is very common to experience mild to extreme soreness around your nipple area.

This soreness needs to be addressed and catered to avoid further complications. Lanolin can be a good supplement to use in case of soreness issues.

Even though, seemingly the tube does not contain a lot of moisturizers if you’re only applying it to treat the soreness of induced lactation.You can use it for well over a year easily and it is very cost effective as well.

But duly note, it is only a moisturizer and there are other moisturizers as well to deal with the soreness.

A Few Misconceptions

Many people still think that induced lactation is a myth. This misconception has been noticed even among doctors.

But in truth, not only women that are not pregnant can produce milk; the above process is applicable for men as well. Yes, starting from consuming herbal medicine to have a nursing partner to suckle and use a breast pump, men can produce milk the same way as women.

And according to research, induced lactation could be very important for the future with the rise of surrogating and adoption.

But not just that, to truly attain equality and help a partner stay on track in their workplace, male partners can seriously start thinking to support their women partners by producing milk in their breasts as well.

Another misconception is that this process is experienced only to parents that are adopting.But in recent times; adults are getting more and more inclined to adult nursing relationship. Also, just as explained above, it can become a very useful tool to start co-breastfeeding.

Final Word

The process of consuming medicine, using a pump, and experiencing soreness month after month to years on a daily basis is a huge commitment. It will test your resilience, will power, and the ability to keep going forward.

That’s why it is important to know what you’re getting into and committing to before you start.

And if you’re only doing this because you want to adopt but you have no willingness to go through all the processes each day, I’d recommend that you look for other substitute ways to breastfeed a child.

Producing milk is not the only important part of breastfeeding and you should feel just as content otherwise. But if you do decide to induce milk, hope this article gets you through your tough times and helps you make the induced lactation stimulation processes a part of your everyday life.